Let us proclaim a truce. I forbid the subject to be mentioned again
unless I mention it. And let my word be law."

Mr. Carnegie's word, in that house, was law.




CHAPTER IV.

_A RIDE WITH THE DOCTOR._


The next morning Mr. Carnegie was not in imperative haste to start on
his daily circuit. The boys had to give him an account of yesterday's
fun. He heard them comfortably, and rejoiced the heart of Bessie by
telling her to be ready to ride with him at ten o'clock--her mother
could spare her. Bessie was not to wait for when the hour came. These
rides with her father were ever her chief delight. She wore a round
beaver hat with a rosette in front, and a habit of dark blue serge.
(There had been some talk of a new one for her, but now her mother
reflected that it would not be wanted.)

It was a delicate morning, the air was light and clear, the sky gray and
silvery. Bessie rode Miss Hoyden, the doctor's little mare, and trotted
along at a brisk pace by his stout cob Brownie. She had a sense of the
keenest enjoyment in active exercise. Mr. Carnegie looked aside at her
often, his dear little Bessie, thinking, but not speaking, of the
separation that impended. Bessie's pleasure in the present was enough to
throw that into the background. She did not analyze her sensations, but